I'm going to imagine all this, how

I'm going to imagine all this, how

the head has gone in several different directions

none of which arrive anywhere

            other than here

I think I know your demons, they are

my demons too, I think

I know how the song goes but play it for me

one last time    anyway

and pour me whatever you've got, some

I think I know

            I am lacking grace

substantial

I'm going to imagine all this, how

I cannot blithely go and I cannot

            cannot stay

stay please sadness stay gumption stay possibilities stay

            mad

because I'm not going to imagine all this

because I was furious

because I was curious

how I'm not going

because

            I rearrange the furniture again

Sometimes I need to be wrong about everything

surplus debris, optimized

sound, wait, raise this

push this (in terms of the trajectory)

before that I was desperate

and doing an experiment;

I drilled holes in the roof and there were already holes in the roof

I was trying to connect

the wrong ones

raise X, cut this

idea of  'inside'

which makes things a little small

the end

Tantrum

            I'm fixing a hole. The heat came through, the cold came through. I don't choose my affinities, I make the holes. I fix the holes again. Starting from this beginning, I leave a lot out. I knit through death. I knit through the holes. The randomness of friendship has nothing to do with it. Your career has nothing to do with it. Stability exists alongside melting ice, slipknots, power lines, mud. This is not up to me.

I'm thinking a hole. With or without ability. With or without increases. One side of the canyon is winter, the other is still fall. Stability exists with or without an occasion. Your salary has nothing to do with it. I choose to leave a lot out.

Known Issues

you were a liar, untrustworthy, with poor judgment

you were a coward and no: my mistake

you emerge from the stall with a telephone in one hand

and this is creepier, this is stupid, but what

you were forgetting to unpack there was no point

you were awake and I was dreaming the pieces except to say

you kept forgetting to drive you were the entertainment

you took over the lecture, a reenactment of, for instance

the bad children's table

you were intransigent you were inimitable no you were just

you, you were acting as if

you were in my dream again but then

you emerge you use exclamation points you almost arrive at

you were forgetting I was awake

you waited a year alongside me you waited

you did not think this should count you were willing to accept

you were overheard you were not counting

you fake it easily but I remember you saying, the look in your eyes

you forgive easily but I remember

I remember it all

Fantasia

(beginning with Apollinaire's Zone and ending with the End of the World as You Know It)

In the end, you are tired

of this old world

this icon, enough, this oldness of form even the automobiles

this old disbelief and simple, like somewhere

to hang your aeroplane

Alone, you are ashamed

you have not read everything you are supposed

to have read and this is poetry enough

a thousand pictures

I saw you this morning and I forgot your name

I forgot your new name, your right name, your

other name

but I remembered the shape of your mouth

antiquity

sirens wail and I think I should be—other

I am ashamed

by grace

This city whose name

I have not forgotten

Recreate it

and set the place on fire

The flowers cannot extinguish the wind

the skinny wind tangled in the tree

in the center of your believing eye

You become a bird and fly

while the angels fling themselves about

Icarus and a bunch of other guys

float around the first hovercraft

only budging for those who demand

absolute absolution

The priests keep shoving bread at us

The aeroplane does not flap its weary wings

You find yourself alone and love

tears at your throat, makes demands

in a language you do not understand

I wish to remember the decline of loneliness

as an avocation

I wish to remember the landscape

you are sometimes permitted to see

I wish to remember

the hand that struck through my thoughts

steady denial of persistent imagery

Counting backward from 1,000

at our feet

staring into oblivion

aka your hair, your jewelry, your past tense

or your tense past

Economy which too much eat

which too must excrete

at the edge of texture

I prowl

I am sick of shame, the image which possesses you

sustains you

this passing image, this vision

of sea creatures crowned with thorns

You were sad to die but you were offended

by the day

the clock runs backwards and you live slowly

in reverse

to songs sung off-key in

dimly lit bars

You were afflicted with love and dare not look

at your own hands

That which I love in you, all that gave you hope,

gives you shape

mostly jealous, I am humbled

by the horrible

dissolve

Morning will come

Overheards Overhead

 

         

ahhh, they end up homeless, in trouble either way

either options, wow, more people—I, uh

the picture, the image, so in winter I went back over there, c'mon (which is technically)

seventeen bucks to Panama that's the thing

a little bit go back to sleep everyday (which is technically

            cheating)

—dirt (uh-huh) it's awkward

you sit, you sit and sit and sit (huh?)

it's true and maybe I never will

(am I the? not so gradual breakdown) you are hungry? played still spilled

paranoia (disintegration)

patient, with me being insane the next one—I?—at the beginning it's so good enter it

two hours round trip (dude, years) in the back the other day

(insert gesture here, invert) somewhere around here photograph all of them

(I keep thinking she is someone else who makes me nervous)

could you? headlights I think that the whole series I can't believe scope of the day

(gesture of acknowledgement) I know we had that

my cousin didn't raw instant clearly all your waiting around (but it's the gesture that counts)

all the males… complex…no, I'm sorry, I'm a failure

I'm going to be until December (we were talking about that)

modelling for you, which apparently did not ha ha ha ha

he was the gateway you wanted, happy hour here

he did he was trying

finally stay make all new and it's hard the source bare electronic

well-balanced married flirting against I would like to, I definitely enjoyed that, as everyone said I
know reactions accelerate

(and disappears)

(Talk about fire) (to be read quickly)

          Talk about fire…

                                                (fade too slowly, shut up)

This sloppy pseudo-deliberate spill all miss you right past you and I want the right

not two nights from now

but that's what you get            (that's what you get)

I seek spill all my naïve all over the place someone else almost

did I cave first?

it's not a game now she know could yes I'm yes I'm

sloppy in love yes I'm so many stupid no

only forward

talk about fire oh shit something inevitable the is this go back

is this it go you framing this go antics annoying likeness of

phantom bridges not washed out

my mouth is shut up squeak who I'm not I'm not I'm not

alright no shoe after whitewater reverence yeowwwh than it deserves

            (motor noises with mouth)

oh more deliberate detritus you lose murmur squeak

the tone but not the substance mountains

'really' like a sneeze

            SQUEAK

we have reached the edge of the kingdom

it's messy

The ease of this blankness which is not empty space

            The ease of this blankness which is not empty space, which is absence into which I sink my teeth and I pull away with nothing still between them. I pull away with the ease of emptiness, which, having spoken, cannot hold still. Poke it again to see if it still hurts. It still hurts. Poke it again to see if it responds. It responds. Cry out again to see if it is listening. It still hurts. Cry out again to see if it still hurts. It responds. The window flaps open and the roar of motorcycles on the highway deadens the moment. The window hinges creak and the silence is momentary. The window blows closed. The roar of motorcycles continues to annoy. And some other sounds, voices drift by. Just try to hold on, hold on.

            Another instance, in which you were just there. You were there eighteen years ago, conveniently also someone's age. You were there when the wall came down. You were there eating cake. You were there and then. You weren't. You were opening. Busy is an adequate substitute for age. I'd be black and white. And you'd be white and black. Busy is an adequate substitute for color. The picture was playing but there was no sound. Or, you just weren't there. As if a space, an indentation, could make all the difference. And it could. As if this space were an adequate substitute for difference. For another instance. For your presence, which is conveniently somewhere else. (And it could.)

            Just now, a free light show to the east, the horizon expects me. I am horizontal, the vertical expects a light show to the east, a daunting performance. Who points across several state lines to accuse me of absence. The war itself is not over but missing, the news site assures me. So what have I got to lose?

Someone else's music

Someone else's music floats through the edge and the dogs bark window telling you something like "what is a sprawler?" It's someone who goes like this:

(Embodiment of sprawl. Illustration of sprawl.)

Your accidental likeness recreated or, if you will, regenerated everywhere you turn; you have to choose. It goes like this:

Is it late enough to care?

Her hand in mine. Your hand in mine. My heart in your mouth.

It's not taking the edge off anything, just making me sloppy.

The decision is mine. Someone else's decision wafts through and I take a bite. Spit it out. The menu is inedible. Your words are indelible. I will hold you to them. I will hold them against you.

There is no way around it, only through it.

We set things on fire to stop the fire. Sometimes that's the way it goes. This is the easy part. I have pictures of this. This is the hard part. That's the way it goes. The fire. Your heart. My music.

It's not taking the edge off anything.

My accidental decision. Is it late enough? Other people say this is possible. Other people have words for this possibility. Other people also have small, portable pools that they put water in and splash around. Other people also have broken hearts and broken nails and broken promises and broken televisions and everything is broken but everything, like the carousel, goes 'round again. Everything makes life noisy.

The next time you can choose another animal.

The next time you can let go of the idea of getting it right.

This time I will close the window but I will not let go of your hand.

Meaningful Uncertainty [draft]

we begin with this place and the form it takes: a blueness
on the surface and a paleness within, a singular hum
            at the center

rearrange the pieces and point
to a scrawled permission, cut out the rest
we lack, we become abstract


several intersections later the part that opens and pulls apart
opens and pulls apart

   cut out
   fall back
   gravity masquerades

we begin with this delicate pang and there is no more room: a suggestion
(will give information, will talk, will meet)

stop trying to draw parallels, it's messy
but the hunger itself is actual lack
the rest is just physical, the form it takes: gravity
will have its way and I too sink inexorably toward you

   historically humans
   have not fallen in love
   carefully or at any sort
   of measured pace




da capo: we have reached the edge

once this trajectory has begun
all the softness in the world overflows

Lullaby

I keep falling asleep, waking up and reading 

the next paragraph of the book

       and so little slivers

of the story invade how I'm thinking of you anyway

instead of reading / a quick flash of lightning

or a glimpse of water rushing, the surface of the lake

       slightly wrinkled but mostly still

 :  a state of perpetual consumption

 :  this collision of sky with sky

last night, dead lizards and spiders in my hair

Lightning to the East

          and to the west, scraped shins
a song or two about a broken heart inevitably and I push push push
this thing I can't touch          about face
about time          this terrible reason
in the face of it all       this disarticulated greed
and the orifices all around          all      around
comme ça      but I'm just not sure
       and this repeats and this repeats because it's late
(when will I get tired of this? soon soon)
      because it's late
I am inexplicably sad, or explicably everything
memory does not make sense, memory makes memory
it's all a tease          and the real moment breaks
the real story of your life a halting narrative, instance / sliced
put back together (uh-oh)       this disarticulated absence
         in which we collide

Friction Loss [a newer draft]

Time to back up. Time to look
across one's shoulder, blink
a surreptitious flick of the, no, not
embarrassment. Effigy. But? Forgot my sunglasses again. That kind of
sympathetic thump. Just in the nick of

An artificial display of affection or interest. An opportunity
to back up, to look across one's indigence, to impute
potential heartbreak. Forgot myself again. That kind of
penury. That blip on the surface, that reflection or that
aspiration—curses, flubbed again.

I pretend to recognize these birds.
I slip from the sidewalk.
I covet my former self.
I congregate, around the edges
things just went dark.

And so the landscape squiggles. The edges overlap.


My heart just broke open and sang a bit.

A Remix of You

blurred music cuts in and out
through the sound of the heater
from the next room
and I can barely stand it

there is something looking over your shoulder
       someone tossing salt
there is someone thinking of you
(thinking of you)

I want to jump up and slam something closed

instead, I float
barely

(you are left with this)
residue

there are so many things I have forgotten to tell you:
       the man on the bike with the cat on his back
       the stasis of my slow descent

this does not end here and this does not begin, either
where everybody hates everybody
(echo)
I couldn't draw a map of my own life
but I could, perhaps, point

(smoke break—we will talk about God in a minute)
geography is inconvenient—this is what our fingers say
geography is real / our fingers are inconvenient
(this is what God says)

some sort of finality [ENTER]
some sort of reality [try again]

or just the moon, staring blankly:
insignificance

       geography is inconvenient
       (we will talk about this in a minute)
       the things I have forgotten are real

Irretrievably Broken

Another instance, another retraction. Fits and starts.

In the distance the landscape appears to move more slowly while up close

everything whizzes by. The middle vacillates.

            The middle is frozen. The way back

is clear. The way back is frozen. The direction is a red hotel sign, swirls on the surface: another infraction.

Then again, I've seen how you fold; I've seen how it's all distended. I've folded and refolded last night's silence, which still would not fit. I've started—

Oops, fell into this again.This silence, this instance, this traction.

Geography is inconvenient. Dark spots linger. Futile clicks. Conceited, stuck-up dreams.

Gravity keeps me honest.

Everything whizzes by.

Find: Gone

… as if the thought were a preformed thing, a thing of shape and substance, that enters the mind and is then perceived in its entirety… not as something like color, but as being

…the heft of it…

and I would press this against us and maybe it would stay

I want to think you into existence. Think you into my bed. And make you stay there.

The heat sings. The cold sings. The honey sings / on my tongue. You are there. You are always there. Only I don't know who you are.

Who owns grief?

I hate you because you make everyone else, because you're so wrong and so right; I want
to jump up and slam something shut (some imperceptible imagined end).
I try to touch too many points at once; you see

I don't need to be found.

… as if the thought were there with me, a thing of shape and substance, dissatisfied and shrinking and not perceived in its entirety… as something like color … as something blankly significant

I need to think you into existence.

Only I don't know whose grief this is.
I don't know who you are.
And you would still be gone.